President & Convicted Felon: Historian on the Unprecedented Trump Verdict | Amanpour and Company

well it's a verdict that will be forever cemented in history in almost 250 years of America as we know it no US president has ever been convicted of a crime that is until this week so where does this moment stand in the longer Arc of US History haris reason speaks to historian and former director of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library Tim naftali B thanks Timothy Neftali thanks so much for joining us I guess right now put this in perspective what the last 24 hours have been in the context of presidential history how significant was this well this was the yesterday's uh guilty verdict uh in the New York State case against Donald Trump was extremely significant in terms of presidential history and it really has two significances the first is a very simple one but it will be one that will be remembered for all time and that's that in this country even the most powerful can be found guilty can be indicted and then convicted by a jury of their peers uh no former president no president has ever been convicted of a crime and we have just established a precedent that will go on forever that significance is easy to understand the second one well we'll have to wait to understand the second significance is to our politics um we've never had one of the two principal presidential candidates found guilty of a crime during a presidential election uh we talk about October surprises those are surprises that occur at the very end of an election that could uh particularly in a closed election shift enough voters one way or the other to alter the outcome well this is a May uh surprise and we don't know the consequences for the election of one of the presumed two major party candidates being found guilty what we can predict is that uh some of the rhetoric of this campaign will will shift and Republicans um trumpists are going to focus on the rule of law in our legal institutions they're going to trash them they have to trash them because if you say that we have the rule of law and if you say that Justice is impartial in America then Donald Trump is a convicted felon and how do you nominate a convicted felon to lead your party um to the presidency so we can anticipate a torrent of toxic language that is going to seek to weaken the institutions of our legal system the way the stop the steel campaign sought to weaken America American Trust in our electoral system we know the consequences of the stop the steel campaign the very sad tragic consequences culminating in January 6 we just can't tell what the consequences of of the likely attack on our judicial system will be this time yesterday one of the one of my neighbors said to me hey look Nixon didn't go to jail right and if in his mind if this got to a point where he saw the image of this President even for a day behind bars for him that is a Rubicon that can't be crossed because if can happen to this President what's to say that every presid president after when they leave office won't be tried on charge X or Y from a political opponent well I I I believe that Richard Nixon certainly should have been indicted um the reasons why Gerald Ford pardon Nixon are understandable Jed Ford was a was a great American um he stabilized our system restored some trust in government um but I think the mistake he made was not to wait for an indict so that the crimes that President Nixon allegedly committed would have been in one place for the American people to learn let's talk about the differences uh between the Nixon case and the Trump case because I think that's why the indictments uh were important um the at least the ability of grand juries to indict were important in after the Trump presidency president Trump unlike Richard Nixon sought to remain part of our political world Richard knew his career was over he was not going to uh he couldn't he couldn't run again um uh he had been elected twice but he he wasn't planning to disrupt our political system in Exile Donald Trump did not accept the outcome of the 2020 election uh and therefore was planning to continue his campaign uh to be president so the the differences are clear um Gerald for was thinking that he would um he would uh allow Richard Nixon a more peaceful political Exile Gerald Ford did not pardon Nixon so that Nixon could return as a political figure uh Donald Trump decided to return as a political figure and so uh he in a sense mandated that his crimes his alleged crimes be tried because um it's not healthy for a political system to have a felon president so I think there there there are two differences one last point and and it's fair on on the part of those who worry about political trials if you assume that every trial of a powerful person is political right then a president being tried after he or she leaves office is puts us in in the in the same categories countries that have political trials on the other hand if you respect our institutions you should think that a ran jury should have the ability to indict a powerful person regardless of what position they may have held before I think it's very important for society that everybody regardless of how high they rise in our Elite understand that if they commit a crime they'll be held responsible we don't want to live in a society I think where once somebody becomes president they know that forever they will never be tried or indicted because that would seem to be political that would be dangerous that would in a sense be giving a blank check to any future president that no matter what you do don't worry in our country you can't be indicted because you were once our head of state is there anything that we can learn from other countries who have had similar challenges with their leadership I mean uh whether they've been convicted or tried what's kind of the the best lessons that we can take uh don't elect convicts to office that is the the best advice here here's here's where where the unprecedented is is actually uh preny um our country has been lucky due to two things the strength of its institutions and the fact that that most of its heads of state couldn't conceive of the behavior that Donald Trump has exhibited that we've never faced never fa the prospect of a of a a convicted corrupt man coming into the office Oval Office but many countries have uh sadly too many countries have found powerful men seeking to retain or acquire power to avoid the consequences of their actions and then to stay in power as long as possible to avoid trials to come there are so many countries in the world where you have uh these where you have leaders really dictators who don't leave office because they are fearful that there will be the Day of Reckoning should they no longer control all the levers of power in their country you study leges uh at one point you uh directed the Nixon Presidential Library and I wonder history is sometimes kinder to the legacy of presidents with the benefit of time and Nixon largely stayed out of uh public life U but say for example President Bill Clinton who was impeached he's still active on the world stage what happens to president Trump does this become a small asterisk does this become a defining characteristic well Donald Trump's um history hasn't been fully written yet I think a lot of it has to do with what happens in November if he returns to power um one could predict that he will try to undermine our legal system by using the the presidential pardon to try to mess with at least the two Federal cases that he still uh faces well that will be part of his history so it is very difficult at this point to to know in advance what what my future colleagues in 30 years will write about Donald Trump I mean if when we're looking solely at his um first term if that's his first term um as as opposed to his only term one would focus on um the Abraham McCords uh which have actually altered the politics of the Middle East we look at um uh his government's approach to vaccines he personally did not support what his government achieved but um um you know the moonshot approach that his government took to the vaccine issue proved to be very beneficial for the American people so I'm looking at at elements of his administration that might get more attention as as time passes but he'll would still have to reckon historians would still have to reckon with January 6 which regardless of of of what role you think he played on that day or or preparing for that day his rhetoric certainly inflamed uh his base and and laid the foundation for the behavior that resulted in the attack on our on our Congress so uh yes over time uh some of the achievements uh that that men and someday women have had in the white house um are are fully appreciated but but the but whatever damage they they uh create that doesn't disappear it's just that everything is contextualized um uh Donald Donald Trump uh did not have a um opening to China moment in his foreign policy the Abraham courts were important but but they do not uh they they do not really match the Brilliance and the um the effect of Nixon going to China so when everyone looks at Nixon of course Watergate is is significant because it shows the the basic Corruption of the man but you still have to come to terms with both his approach to China and his approach to Vietnam uh and the fact that he signed some of the most uh Progressive environmental bills though he disliked them in our history so the the Nixon um the Legacy for Richard Nixon is is complex and complicated if Donald Trump simply ends up with one presidential term um the bad of that term especially because of January 6 I think will uh forever outweigh the good but I can't really speak on behalf of of historians not yet born the former president has been incredibly successful in openly saying you know what if I don't win this coming election it's r uh if I get a verdict that's not in my favor it's corrupt um and really he's been quite successful with his base in reframing the events of January 6th and the context of the election lie over and over again and I wonder if the president has had uh I guess a measurable effect on how Americans think about facts think about our government think about personal responsibility I think we'd be missing the bigger story if we thought that Donald Trump is the creator of all the tensions and divisions in our country um I think that um uh we are still um processing the consequences of the Great Recession uh the recovery after the Great Recession was unequal across the country and I saw uh I remember a very suggestive um set of facts about um the the counties in this country that voted for Obama in 12 and then voted for Trump in 16 many of them were counties that had not recovered as as well economically as others in this country so um there is an economic story here uh there's a cultural story which is that um many Americans who who form part of President Trump's base um are uncom comtable with the cultural and social changes that have occurred in our country um they they feel some of them feel that this in in some ways undermines their identity it certainly undermines their ability to predict um how life will be in this country and finally uh let's not forget the consequences of covid we are still making sense of the effect of the pandemic on how we interact with each other um on on um on the very sort of the basic questions of of life and Humanity wrap those together and then put that in a a social media Tik Tock world and what you end up with is this um moment where A lot's going on Donald Trump is the Avatar of of the of the of the sort of the dark sad side of all these changes you know you could take a glass half full and talk about our resilience as a country our ability to change our ability to continue to innovate we are still at the center of most the great and interesting Innovations going on in the world AI for example on the other hand you could say oh my goodness everything is changing I don't know what's going to happen and what my place will be in the future so the fact that the glass itself has a certain amount of water that's not Donald Trump's doing how it's interpreted by millions of Americans that is helped by the Trump phenomenon his Charisma his his his negative Charisma uh has had an effect in inflaming I mixed metaphors but has in a sense inflaming these differences and he has R ridden them to power at least once and wants to do it again in 2024 presidential historian Timothy Neftali thanks so much for joining us thank you Harry my pleasure [Music] [Music]

Channel: Amanpour and Company

Views: 99,087

Keywords: interview, CNN, PBS, Christiane Amanpour, world news, news anchor, news show, news, public affairs, late-night TV, journalist, Chief International Correspondent, Timothy Naftali, Hari Sreenivasan, Trump, Trump Trial, Trump Verdict, Historian

Id: _NT9iWsCyTM

Length: 15min 40sec (940 seconds)

Published: Fri May 31 2024